1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mailboxes and particularly to mailboxes used along country and other roads and more particularly to rendering such mailboxes safer for the owners to retrieve mail from as well or place mail in for collection. More particularly still the invention relates to a canted ball bearing arrangement for providing automatic swiveling for roadside rural mailbox support.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Mailboxes on posts or sometimes more substantial pedestals have been used for many decades along roads and other transportation routes particularly where there are no sidewalks for mail carriers to traverse. Such mailboxes traditionally extend from the side of the road close enough to the roadway itself so that a postman or woman in a mail delivery vehicle of some design, usually with a so-called right hand drive, can reach out of the vehicle and opening the usual pivoted door on the mailbox first retrieve any mail in the box and then insert mail which the mail carrier is delivering into the mailbox for pick-up by the owner of such mailbox. Since the mailbox necessarily extends extremely close to the road, however, and opens to the front, it is necessary for the owner of the box to step out onto the side of the road in order to access the box, where, however, such owner, as roads have become more crowded, runs the risk of being struck by traffic. Older citizens who are neither as alert nor as nimble in avoiding danger run a particular risk in such circumstances.
Some mailboxes have been provided with an opening at each end so that the owner can access the end away from the road and the mail carrier can access the roadside end. However, with a large mailbox, the owner then often finds the mail deposited mostly on the roadside and will prefer to access the box on the roadside in order to avoid having to stretch their arm deeply into the box.
The doors on mailboxes are often also not particularly tight, even if securely shut, so that rain may gain access to the box. For this reason, the box will usually be inclined slightly downwardly toward the front so that drainage will be outwardly rather than inwardly. If there is an opening at both ends, however, any leakage into the box on the higher end will run down to the other end dampening mail resting on the bottom.
It is believed that a mailbox pivoted for varied access and provided with a lever to rotate the box may have already been suggested, but to the present applicant's best knowledge no automatically rotating mail boxes have been previously available.